Scales and Notes
by ncfan
Summary: The first time Maglor tried to teach Elrond and Elros how to sing, his efforts yielded... mixed results. (Maglor remembers.)


I own nothing.

* * *

It had been centuries since Maglor had last attended to his harp, so long that the calluses on his fingertips had long-since receded into soft flesh and the muscles in his arms would ache if he played for too long, as they had when he had still been a student in Tirion. He had thrown down his harp only to pick up his sword; he had new calluses, and his arms were accustomed to different kinds of weight and activity. There were many who had done just the same as him, and had died clutching the sword rather than what they had put down in favor of it.

And yet, it was nothing to remember the notes and the scales. It was nothing to remember words and melodies, the rhythms of songs and how loud or how soft they were to be sung. It should not have been so. By all rights, it should not have been so. His voice should not have been so smooth. He should not have been able to sing for hours without growing weary.

"_I think music must be written on your soul."_

_The light that spilled over them was silver, Telperion's light still waxing. Fëanáro smiled ruefully and leaned back, his palms planted on the grass. His half-grown son smiled back at him, though his smile might have been tinged with triumph._

_Though unlike his second-born, Fëanáro did not pursue music-making with nearly all-consuming zeal, he was not entirely unschooled. Míriel Þerindë was supposed to have been a fair singer herself, even if her songs had been sung without words. Fëanáro knew a few of the Noldor's songs, and on a whim one day decided to see which Makalaurë knew. Makalaurë thought that his father had looked surprised indeed when it turned out that he was familiar with all of them._

"_Master Lindano taught us a lot of those," Makalaurë admitted, though his smile did not fade._

"_Oh? And what of the rest?"_

"_I found them on sheet music in Grandfather's library."_

"_Hmm." Fëanáro reached out and clapped Makalaurë on the shoulder; just as soon as he did that, he jumped back to his feet and started back towards the house, leaving Makalaurë clambering to follow. "You should keep learning, Kano, even after your master deems you in no more need of teaching. There will always be more to learn."_

All too often, Fëanor's words echoes through the years. Those weren't the words Maglor usually remembered most clearly, though, and that content expression wasn't what he remembered either.

_Better those words for this day. _He set his jaw._ Better not the others…_

He met the gazes of Elrond and Elros, who sat across from him and wore uncommonly eager expressions on their small faces. He almost didn't have to force a smile.

The small room that came as close to being Amon Ereb's library as anything could was where Maglor had decided to hold lessons on rainy days like this one. For once, the twins barely seemed to care that the weather kept them cooped up inside, and the gloomy skies seemed not to dampen their spirits at all. Were they so eager to learn? Given the way they fussed over being taught their letters, it was a bit of a surprise.

Well, Maglor hoped that they would retain that eagerness. "Alright. I am just going to sing two verses of a simple song—yes, Elros, a Sindarin one—and when I am done, let's see what you can recite of it."

It was a song he had heard in Mithrim, a nursery rhyme sung by young parents to ease their children off to sleep, and it occurred too late to Maglor that the dialect of Sindarin was a different one than Elrond and Elros were familiar with. He and his kin had learned Iathrim Sindarin long ago (for the House of Fëanor it had been a necessity, something to make them slightly less objectionable to their neighbors in Doriath), but Maglor didn't alter the lyrics of songs, not under any circumstance—the song would lose its vitality that way. It seemed also disrespectful to the ones who made it to meddle with the wordings of their own songs.

Sure enough, when he had sung the verses through, both of these Iathrim twins were staring at him with some bemusement. Elrond's eyebrows were slightly raised. "Erm… Maglor?"

"Yes, Elrond?" He could practically hear Elrond's questions formulating in his head.

"We don't know all of those words." The young boy's dark eyes shone with curiosity. "What are they?"

"Try another song next time."

As one, the three of them jumped in their skins—the twins stiffened at the tone the speaker took and Maglor shot a half-glare at the Quendë sitting at one of the tables with his back turned to them. He'd almost forgotten Maedhros was even in the room, he was being so quiet. As it was, Maedhros did not turn to look at them; he sat poring over his book, his shoulder pressed up against the wall, head resting against the rough stone. Maglor thought his shoulders looked a touch hunched.

Maglor forced himself to tear his gaze away from his brother and instead directed his attention back at Elros and Elrond. "…As to that, children, I will explain whatever confuses you in time. Just try to sing what you can for now."

They had clear, sweet singing voices, both of them, though not identical. Elros's was loud and confident, where Elrond's was quieter, a touch hesitant. Lúthien was supposed to have sung with a voice like the voices of the nightingales, a voice near to fairness as her mother's. These two were her descendants, in that.

However, they weren't quite in tune. With some chagrin, Maglor remembered the singing lessons of his youth, before he came to fame in Aman as a singer. _Well, they're no worse than I was._

"That's quite good for a first try. I do think that there is room for improvement, however."

Much as he had expected, he was greeted with an indignant stare, one that Maglor could only suppose mirrored the way he had looked at his teachers when he was young and the quality of his voice had proved substandard. Rather to his surprise, it was Elrond—Elrond who was far more inclined than his brother to keep his mouth clamped shut over objections during lessons—who was looking at him so crossly. Elros just seemed impatient to keep going.

Over the next hour, they continued the pattern Maglor had started. Elros parroted back verses until he grew bored with sitting. He did so while pacing the room for a little while, his gaze flickering towards the rain-splattered windows, but eventually he climbed into a chair beside the one where Maedhros sat. Maglor couldn't quite rouse himself to calling Elros back.

Elrond's concentration, however, was single-minded, even when he stumbled over words or melodies and his face scrunched up with frustration. It was… Maglor didn't quite know what to make of it.

"Elrond," he said at length, "it's fine if you don't understand everything right away. There's plenty of time." Though the moment those words passed Maglor's lips, he felt guilty for them, for who was he to say if there would be time?

Some of the angry color left Elrond's face, though his cheeks remained a bit flushed. "I want to get it right," he muttered.

"I know you do, Elrond."

In Aman, Ilmanis had taught students from time to time, though she rarely had more than two or three at a time and, if Maglor remembered correctly, they came to her for additional tutoring only. Maglor had tried to teach a student but once, and that had ended so disastrously that he never tried to teach music again, so long as he lived in Aman.

"_I think, my friend, that you are just meant for performance," _Silmalindo, one of Maglor's old Vanyarin friends had remarked, and Elemmírë chimed in with laughter.

"_It's not my fault if the boy couldn't keep up," _Maglor retorted, staring down into his tankard, brow furrowed.

Ilmanis had twisted her mouth slightly at this; Elemmírë caught sight of her expression and laughed again, so uproariously that the people in the next booth over stared at them, bemused. From there, Maglor could protest all he wanted, but Elemmírë's eyes glimmered with mirth and her mouth was set in a grin.

Not until later had Maglor seriously begun to consider that perhaps the flaws were in him and his teaching style, and not in the child he had tried to teach so long ago (He wondered what had become of that boy, sometimes, whether he had participated in the Revolt, whether he was even still alive). In Beleriand, he'd not tried to teach again, for he could not bring himself to touch his harp, could not think of a single song to sing, and could think of nothing else worth passing down. If the children of the Noldor wished to learn languages, they would find no shortage of teachers. If the children of the Noldor wished to learn the sword, they would find no shortage of teachers. Maglor could find nothing in him capable of giving such guidance, and the one time he had tried, he'd not proved especially adept.

But with Elrond and Elros, the desire had come to him naturally. He had made the offer to teach them how to read and write, and then to sing, without agonizing over the decision or even deliberating it. He had even been eager to teach them, and Maglor had no idea where that eagerness came from. Teaching them, he supposed, had been expected. He and Maedhros had taken these two from their family, from their people—they were responsible for Elrond and Elros, and as the two boys were sons of princely houses, seeing to their education was one of those obligations that must be fulfilled. Enthusiasm did not dictate that.

Mayhap it was just some attempt to distract himself from what had become of his life.

Mayhap not.

Elrond stared off into space, his cheek resting on his shoulder. All traces of frustration had left him. His gaze was pensive, unreadable, eyes half-shut. His small arms were wrapped around his legs. An unnatural stillness settled over him.

Maglor knew that stillness well. It was the stillness of waiting. Waiting for what, well, who could say?

Once more, Maglor forced a smile to his lips. Even without a mirror before him, he could only imagine that it looked grotesque. "Why don't you try just one more song for today?"

That Elrond did, but distant, he remained.

* * *

Fëanáro—Fëanor  
Makalaurë, Kano—Maglor

Quendë—literally 'Speaker'; an Elf (plural: Quendi) (Quenya)


End file.
